Henry is telling the truth

Fair play to him for putting us in the picture, and here's the reasons why I believe he is not looking to take money out of the club:

a) we don't have any discernible debt against the club - which he paid offb) they wrote off 30 mil c) they have acted quickly in correcting mistakesd) owners do not make any money out of football unless they go down the leveraging route, which they have proven is anathema to them.

I know there are people who disagree, but I think I have stated facts, whereas the naysayers are merely conjecturing.

"d) owners do not make any money out of football unless they go down the leveraging route"

This isn't a fact. My guess is it's simply a non sequitur assertion from looking at United. It's disproved by Arsenal, whose owners appear to be making plenty of dosh and aren't leveraged, I believe.

The United owners are making money and are leveraged. But the fact they are leveraged is irrelevant. United is highly profitable. If the Glazers sold the club tomorrow to the Joiners who pay for it in earned cash and who ran it exactly the same way then the joiners would be making money without being leveraged.

The owner's source of finance is irrelevant to whether a football club makes money.

I don't think they are looking to take money out of the club at this stage, I do think that they are looking to cut the wage budget so that Liverpool will make a profit outside of the Champions League places for the forseeable.

I have a number of concerns about our current management. They started with some of the comments coming from BR about 'every player having his price'. At the time Dave rightly pointed out that I wait and see until the transfer window had finished - well that time has come.

I appreciate that Henry has written a letter (that in itself is worth commending) but I think the actions we have seen since last season speak louder than his words.

I'll come back to all of this with a post of my own when I can be arsed, but one of the biggest questions should be ...

Who made the decision that Dempsey wasn't worth bidding any more for? It doesn't seem like it was BR and, despite the PR whispering campaign (which seems to be a feature of our club since FSG?), it doesn't seem as if it was Ian Ayre. I have a feeling that the answer to that causes more concern than all the others put together.

The biggest concern for me, which was picked up in the Telegraph web chat and goes back to the management of the club is about who is actually making the decisions here.

here's the question and answer.

"Brendan Rodgers said when he came in he had full control on transfers. Has this changed or where the restraints on the age of players already in place and known to him. If so why did we approach Clint Dempsey and not look at other strikers"

Chris Bascombe: "This question cuts to the chase..As far as I’m concerned, the story isn’t about financial fair play, or high wages or ridiculous transfers fee. It’s even moved on from Clint Dempsey. It is about the ‘operational issues’ Brendan Rodgers referred to yesterday. If the manager decides he wants to sign a player and think he is worth the price, who within Liverpool football club is assuming the authority to overrule him? Is it John Henry himself deciding Dempsey is not worth more than £3 million? Is it Henry’s mysterious advisers – these faceless and unaccountable figures who are having a major influence on Liverpool’s future? Is it someone else at Anfield we’re not aware of, vetting every player Rodgers requests? On what grounds was the decision taken not to allow managing director Ian Ayre to match Spurs bid for £6 million on Friday? It’s a perfectly reasonable question. If John Henry believes he knows enough about the English Premier League to tell his own manager he is wrong about his valuation of a player, fine. That will clear it up. There are suspicions it is not as simply as that and Rodgers’ judgement has not been trusted."

=================Yet again, at some level there has been mismanagement of the club. I'm growing tired of it. I'm not one at shouting at FSG to go as I honestly believe they can do good things for the club but for far too long we've suffered through poor management. That goes all the way back to Moores era.

I hope noe with this royal c*ck up that they give Rodgers the full control of the football side (I base that onthe fact that I don't believe he had last week.). It needs someone to actually get a grip of it all (youth as well) and shake it to the core and set it up right.

Management need to work with the manager not making decisions for him. Yes, one eye needs to be on the money rightly so and lets all be honest the squad needed some serious changes. Reducing the wage bill is fine with me provided the squad has shape. We don't because of the Royal c*ck up.

Great analogy and interpretation Brad, actions will always speak louder than words. And as for building for the future, what a load of you know what, to build for the future, you have to make sure that the present is taken care of first.

The guy must think Liverpool fans are idiots (and he could be right, judging by some fans who agree with him), but for him to list still having Agger, Sktrl and co still playing for us as an achievement is just plain hypocrisy, we all know Agger would not be here if City had swallowed the bait and offered what Brendan and the owners wanted. Everyone has a price, Brendan said. And to list the signings of Oussama and the other Turkish-German kid as major achievements is laughable, the two cost a total of 3.4 million pounds between them, if they were real quality they definitely would have cost more I assure you.

Brendan himself has come out to say the squad is threadbare, he said he had to train with 19 players the other day, how can he implement whatever tiki taka tactics he is trying to teach if he cant have two full teams at his disposal. I love Americans, I really do but I wish they could stay as far away from football ownership as possible, the fact that they call the beautiful game "SOCCER", really says it all.

Mel, your comment about AmerIcans is so idiotic that I thought it was armchair that made it - particularly as this whole fuss is about an American not being signed by the club.

Then your comments about agger - are you p*ssed off he stayed? Sounds like that to me! city's advances were spurned but if they had offered over 30 million - would you have taken it? If juve had offered 50 mil for Suarez would you not have taken that? Only Messi seems to be an unbuyable player.

Then you whinge like a little girl about us only buying a kid for the future and yes - the previous German player of the year for only 3 mil - conveniently forgetting that fact that the owners had forked out 30 million on other players in the transfer window!

My point is - you've been chatting total b0llocks for a while now, perhaps it's time to grow a brain and think before you type!

Let's see what Henry is saying and what that would mean in practice for LFC.

"They pushed hard in the final days of the transfer window on a number of forward targets and it is unfortunate that on this occasion we were unable to conclude acceptable deals to bring those targets in."

Means that as from now on Liverpool will no longer be able to bring in a player if somebody else is also interested in that player because Liverpool, even if they do have the money, will not be willing to make that extra financial effort required to get the player - even if they desperately need him.

"a summer window which brought in three young,...bla bla.....bla bla etc could hardly be deemed a failure as we build for the future."

Means the owners have no clue what a balanced football squad is.

" In Brendan Rodgers we have a talented young manager and we have valued highly his judgement about the make-up of the squad."

Means they value his judgement highly but only as long as he is looking to bring in youngsters.

"We are avowed proponents of UEFA's Financial Fair Play agenda that was this week reiterated by Mr Platini - something we heartily applaud. We must comply with Financial Fair Play guidelines that ensure spending is tied to income."

Means they are be the most naive owners out there being the only owners who are willingly putting shackles on themselves.

"Our emphasis will be on developing our own players using the skills of an increasingly impressive coaching team."

Means LFC will a become feeder club churning out talents who will leave after their initial contracts as they will earn much higher salaries at clubs who won't have any misgivings in paying "unrealistic wages" to attract proven talents

"We have no fear of spending and competing with the very best but we will not overpay for players".

Means that Liverpool will no longer be able to buy any world class player like Torres, Suarez, Alonso etc since these players are by essence always overvalued, being in great demand.